misfit musings

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Re-defining sanity will be next

No, I’m not making it up. That is a headline on the front page of today’s Daily Telegraph. Nor is it just a case of the Editor putting a ‘shock-horror’ story on the front to attract the attention of readers. We’ve got used to hearing about single women, even old women, even women with 16 or 17 children already, producing babies whenever they want.

A mother, at 62, already old enough to be a great grandmother

The above headline relates to men.

The World Health Organization is about to change its guide lines to redefine the word ‘infertility.’ I’ll pause there while you think about that statement. I expect your wits are much quicker than mine. Even so I think it may take awhile for you to get your head round that.

So says Dr David Anderson, one of the authors of the new standards for the World Health Organisation.

Infertility used to mean that a medical condition of some kind, either with the man or the woman, prevented conception. Now it’s going to mean that anyone, a single man as well as a single woman, who doesn’t want to have sex with anyone, (love no longer comes into it) will be termed to be suffering from a health problem rather than merely making a life style choice and will therefore be able to demand the right to have a child. But since he can’t—male bodies have nowhere to grow babies—I presume this means a surrogate mother. Are there women around who would be prepared to spend nine months of their lives carrying a baby for a man who has just decided a baby boy would fit nicely in his bachelor pad and his new car, as a rather exotic accessory. Or possibly a man, a bit of a loner, who fancies a loving companion, but is allergic to dogs.

I was disappointed by what Archbishop Justin Welby had to say recently about suffering. In an interview with Jeremy Vine he said he wasn’t a good enough theologian to explain how a loving God can allow so much suffering. That’s something we all wrestle with, on a personal level, for eample, when a close relative gets cancer or a child is born disabled. We watch, with sympathy and compassion, the aftermath of hurricanes and earthquakes, and wonder why. For Christians it’s certainly one of the most difficult problems to come to terms with.

However, there is also an awful lot of suffering that is entirely man made.

In today’s Frankenstein world I can’t help thinking that re-defining infertility as a legitimate life-style choice, utterly ignoring the interests and needs of the child, to say nothing of its rights, is suffering waiting to happen.